Friday, August 31, 2007

Death, Taxes...

The University of Oklahoma will ask the NCAA for a waiver to allow a booster to raise money for the funeral of a football recruit who was killed last week.

Herman Mitchell, a 6-foot, 200-pound linebacker, verbally committed in June to play for the Sooners, but the 17-year-old from Westfield High School in Houston was shot to death Friday after getting into a fight at an apartment complex.

Soon after, Oklahoma booster and Houston resident Adam Fineberg began raising money for Mitchell's family to help defray the player's funeral costs. Fineberg had raised about $4,500 before university compliance officials told him his actions violated NCAA rules. He has since refunded the money.

"A lot of people were contacting me, concerned that their donations would get OU in trouble. I'm going to let OU deal with the NCAA," he said Wednesday.

Oklahoma officials said they'd been told Tuesday by the NCAA that the money raised by Fineberg would constitute illegal financial assistance under NCAA rules, because Mitchell's brother is a sophomore football player at Westfield and Fineberg is considered to be an Oklahoma booster.

Fineberg said his only intention was to help Mitchell's mother to pay for the funeral.